


Alchemy

by 221b_hound



Series: The Million Word Festival [3]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Childbirth, Family Feels, Mary - Freeform, Multi, Parenthood, Parentlock, Polyamory, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 02:51:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5400119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first two prenatal check-ups, Mary went with John. They were the ones officially married after all, and it seemed awkward to have Sherlock come as well. Sherlock said he didn’t mind. Why would he mind? He was busy. Experiments to run. A case to solve. Molly had a diseased pancreas for him. You go. You two go. Without me. <em>I am absolutely fine.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	Alchemy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Moonflower75](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonflower75/gifts).



> In response to Moonflower75's Johnlockary prompt with 'baby' in the comments for Choose Your Own Adventure.
> 
> I haven't had a baby myself, so I have glossed over many details.
> 
> I am planning a smutty xmas story with this threesome too.

The first two prenatal check-ups, Mary went with John. They were the ones officially married after all, and it seemed awkward to have Sherlock come as well.

Sherlock said he didn’t mind. Why would he mind? He was busy. Experiments to run. A case to solve. Molly had a diseased pancreas for him. You go. You two go. Without me. _I am absolutely fine._

Mary wanted both of her husbands, her married one and her defacto one, there. It’s not like they knew whose sperm made the little sprog yet anyway, and besides, they were both the father, but Sherlock was in a stubborn these-feelings-do-not-touch-me-I-am-science-personified phase and John was in a helpless-in-the-face-of-societal-expectation phase and fuck it, they’d work on that later. Even if she had to bang their stupid heads together.

Neither Sherlock nor Mary expected John to be the one, on the third visit, to seize Sherlock by the hand and drag him out the door with them.

‘I don’t give a flying fuck about their fucking opinions,’ John had snarled, ‘Their job is to look after Mary’s pregnancy, not judge our family. Fuck them. We’re both the dad. You’re coming.’

It turned out Doctor Watson, having embraced polyamory, had firmer opinions on holistic care for the whole family than he had about not scandalising the medical staff.

The staff only stayed visibly scandalised for the first few visits, anyway. Sherlock scared all the most obnoxious ones away with some well-chosen observations. The scandalised but more professional staff just gave him the stink-eye back and ticked him off for upsetting the mother-to-be.

The best and most open minded ones were those who knew he wasn’t upsetting Mary with his antics in the slightest ( _She’s not upset, she’s laughing, you idiots_! _It’s **John** who’s annoyed. With **you**._ )

They got into a routine, though, the Holmes-Watson-Morstan family, with their regular appointments that all three made, together, without fail.

*

They were all present for the first trimester ultrasound, listening to the little heartbeat.

Mary held her breath so her joyful laughter didn’t bubble up and drown out the sound. John grinned and grinned and grinned and squeezed her hand and grinned and squeezed Sherlock’s hand, and grinned. Sherlock…

Sherlock stared at the screen and counted the heartbeats and looked for the umbilical cord and for the tiny shape that was beginning to look like a baby, and he knew there were no abnormalities before the doctor even said so because there was this case once, but no, really, because that body, that little mass, that tippety-tippety-tippety-tippety-tippety beat of a tiny tiny heart was perfect. Perfect, perfecter, perfectest.

He didn’t speak for an hour afterwards. Couldn’t.

His wife and his husband took him home and they all lay together on the bed, cuddling, silently, speechlessly happy-and-terrified-and-happy.

*

They were all three there for the second trimester ultrasound, when they saw her little face, her little hands and feet, her spine, her strong little heart _tippety-tippety-tippety-tippety-tippety_ and Sherlock wasn’t silent this time but asked question after question after question and had to leave before he had asked all the questions, so John brought home six of the best pregnancy and childbirth text books he knew of and Sherlock read each and every one cover to cover in three days.

And every night that week (and many nights for the months after), they curled up in bed together at 221b, and Sherlock rested his cheek on Mary’s ribs while she lay with her head in John’s lap, and Sherlock told them both only good things about the growth of the foetus with all the chemical processes and technical terms – John sometimes translating for Mary – and they watched her belly together, like they could see through the skin to the tiny person growing inside.

*

They were all three there for the birth, Mary in the birthing pool cursing the pair of them with impressive creativity and then puffing out air.

Sherlock tried to be logical and was screamed at and John tried to be encouraging and was screamed at and then Mary was sorry and was kissed and cossetted and after long hours of this, Mary moving from pool, to bed, to walking the corridor, to bed, to weeping in exhaustion and fear…

… after all this their little girl was coming, she was on her way, she was suddenly in a hurry to greet the world…

… and the midwife brought Sherlock’s suitably gloved hands down to help support the baby’s head and shoulders as she emerged from Mary’s trembling body, and then the midwife brought John’s hands down to support the baby’s lower back and legs, and her fathers held her for just that little moment until the doctor took over, and both men kept looking from her to Mary, the baby to Mary, their daughter to Mary.

‘She’s beautiful.’ John said it, or maybe Sherlock, and Mary laughed, even though she was exhausted and bleeding, and their daughter cried for the first time and one father or the other said again, ‘She’s beautiful’ and ‘You’re beautiful’.

Then the father who was definitely Sherlock said, ‘She’s red and sticky and she looks like John and she is perfect, she’s perfect, Mary, she’s so perfect.’

And the woman who had been an assassin and an adventurer and a warrior and a nurse and a lover and a wife was now a mother too. All of those things in turn but also at once; and now someone altogether new as well, as love remade her yet again – as all of who she had been and had become and was now underwent alchemy.

As all of them underwent alchemy, changed again by love. By the little human they had made together, and how much they loved her already.

Very shortly afterwards, Mary Morstan Watson Holmes cried and laughed and smiled and was radiant and bloody and powerful and fragile with officially-decreed healthy and parentally-decreed perfect Ada Lily curled up on her chest and her doctor husband crying and kissing her forehead, and her detective husband pressing his nose to her sweaty hair, breathing her in, crying silent joy into the perspiration, while the medical staff stitched and cleaned and congratulated themselves on another safe new life and a strange but exceedingly happy new family.


End file.
